We’re well on our way to Oppdal! A place perhaps best visited during winter since it has a reputation for being one of Norways most popular winter destinations, but now it’s summer!
Drive around it? Not possible!

Over time Oppdal has established a reputation for being one of the most popular skiing eldoradoes in this part of the country and may offer more than a 100 km preparated tracks for tour skiing. Three large skiing centres with slopes of varied difficulty, ‘moscus safaris’, rafting, a 9 hole golf course, an aerodome for smaller planes, cinema, indoor swimming facilities, guided tours in the mountains and – thousands of beds divided on first class hotels, boarding houses or cabins all over a large area.

Our first impression of Oppdal: Clean and orderly, but after having looked around a bit the first impression faded. We were hungry! Hungry as wolves after having passed up a number of road cafes that weren’t especially tempting. The last one had nothing but stale cookies and lukewarm coffee! Then it had to be Oppdal!

We stubled up to the counter and croaked our wish: ‘Mountain trout, please’? But,no! The lady behind the counter only shook her head in despair. It just wouldn’t be possible to find any mountain trout in Oppdal on a Saturday afternoon! And no, they didn’t have any other fish on the menu! Sorry! We weren’t very happy withy the idea of industrially made meatballs at this time, and I guess our shoulders were sort of hanging low when the lady suddenly seemed to get a bright idea: ‘But we do have som baked salomon. It’s not really on the menu, but if you . . . ‘

Excuse our possible rudeness, Grøseth. You never got the chance to continue what you were about to say! Baked salomon was just what the doctor ordered! And it was absolutely excellent. So was the desert and the coffee! Our faith in Oppdal was restored for the evening!

After having eaten, we decided to take a stroll around the area and possibly take a few pictures. Experience has taught us that the weather never offers any gurantees and tomorrow it might rain. Better to use the chances that come along . . .

As documented by the picture above: Nothing much is happening in Oppdal on a sunny saturday night – in the summer! Her there is 2 cafes, 1 confectioner, 1 health shop and a sporting store lying in a row. Not as much as a cup of coffee to be had. Fortunately we had just both desert and coffee . . .

From the stone we may read that Mr Ottar F. Stenberg was a soldier whom gave his life for Norway april 25th 1940, but who was he? Why did he get his own memorial stone? We tried Google, but evdently they had never heard of the guy. Not even i combination with Oppdal.
And I somehow don’t believe he was the only one loosing his life that day?Tvers over veien ligger Oppdal Rådhus –Egentlig er det ikke så dumt å fotografere på en lørdag ettermiddag. Man ser i alle fall det man skal fotografere.

Men foran rådhuset sto det en annen vektig kar –

Across the road we found the City Hall of Oppdal.
Actually it’s not a bad idea to take pictures on a Saturday evening. You may at least see what there is to photograph.
In front of the City Hall we found another important figure –

The author Inge Krokann was born in Oppdal in 1893 and much of what he wrote waas printed in his local dialect. As he was educated as a teacher, he wrote much about the expansion of agriculture in Norway around 1800. Krokann himself died in 1962.
We were continuing on our little stroll . . .Sportsforretningen badet i aftensol, men det var som sagt lørdag kveld…

The sporting store was basking in the afternoon sun, but – as said – Saturday night!

Oppdal may have an international clientele on a daily basis, but in fact – I have never ever seen a flag like this! A tribute to the ‘colorful community’?Kanskje damenes område? – for her fant vi frisøren i Oppdal! Ja, kanskje finnes det flere, men her var i det minste en i et “pent strøk”

Perhaps this is ‘the lady’s domène?
-’cause here we found the local ladys hairdressing salon. Well, there might be several more, but at least we found one in nice surroundings.

Oppdal lies on the base of a relatively flat valley only 545 moh surrounded by mountains in all directions. Here we may observe one of the skiing facilities, which should probably be far more active in the winter than our picture of today indicates.
Geographically the community of Oppdal is enormous: 2271 sq.km. (That equals the entire area of Vestfold) On this large area live only 6525 people!

We found several large shopping centres in Oppdal. Still it was sort of strange to observe that the only shop that had a sign unreadable during daytime was the local photo shop?
A photo shop (of all kinds) ought perhaps to master the problems with ‘optical profiling’?

Here is another shopping center and a massive board profiling a gas station belongeing to our national gas and oil supplier Statoil Hydro, but – no gas station! To find it, you’ll haver to turn off from the main road and drive around tro the back side of the block. There you may buy gasoline!
Oppdal boasts of indoor facilities for swimming and a new cutural center. We never found either of them. Later we learned that the cultural center is situated next to the City Hall and that the swimming facilities should be somewhere inside it. Again a matter of profiling, I should think?

We responded hastily with a picture from the last houses along the main road before leaving Oppdal enroute Trondheim –
But perhaps we ought to show you a few pictures from a couple of Oppdals main enterprises? Something else than only shopping centres?

From the outside The Quality Hotel i Oppdal isn’t really a nice looking hotel. It consists of two parts: An old reverend stone structure with patina and style built together with a more modern building in more functional styles.
The mini golf in front of the hotel doesn’t exactly improve on the impressions you get, but perhaps it’s far better on the inside. May be the guests doesn’t notice at all?

Leaving Oppdal we register sort of a memorial nicely decorated with flowers. Sort of a farewell and welcome back? Or only a welcome to Oppdal-sign? I suppose it depends on which way one are coming (or going). It was a nice and friendly gesture –

Leaving Oppdal we also passed the local church.
This particular church was erected in 1651 and seats 600 people. In 2005 our National Antiquary detected major structural decay and that the church was about to putrefy on its roots, so to speak, but looking at this picture it seems that the attack was stopped in time?
Only the structural reapirs on the outside has been calculated to 2,4 million dollars!

From the church I was able to get a few ‘shots’ showing us the the valley itself –Hvis du føler behov for å se mer fra Norge, vennligst sjekk min forside under ‘Geographic Zones’ eller prøv en av hyperlinkene oppført under.

If you feel like seeing more of Norway, please check my front page under ‘Geographic Zones’ or try out several of the hyperlinks below.
(Compliments of SRB )

Thanks for take us with you on your stroll through Oppdal on a summer Saturday evening. Until now I was only in the summer time in Oppdal. And I like that the infrastructure there is good and you get (nearly) all if you want. Of course there are much more beautiful towns in Norway. But I like.😉 Btw, the swimming pool isn’t inside one of the shopping centres. It’s in the culture house.